


decommission recommission play it to the beat

by GraceEliz



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Assassins, Clone Assassins, Gen, Major Character Death at one point, Recommissioning, Sith Mindbuggery, badassery, inspired by Marvel's Black Widow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:33:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25915168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GraceEliz/pseuds/GraceEliz
Summary: “These are the girls,” Lama Su tells him, serenely waving an arm out to the gaggle of fifteen ‘girls’ lined up, gaps left where he can tell there should be another batchmate. There are two types: eight pale, with hair only slightly less white than the walls, and seven dark, with skin even darker than his. The pale girls have eyes in shades of grey-blue, and the dark girls have dark brown. He doesn’t look like them. He doesn’t look like the rest of his batch either, he doesn’t think, considering all the other Clones he’s seen have dark hair and dark eyes. “This is CC-1010. He is your new team member.”
Relationships: CC-1010 | Fox & Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 25





	1. Preface

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Tears And Blocked Memories](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25628344) by [Crazy_not_insane (Queen_of_potatoes_and_Co_Angstalor)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Queen_of_potatoes_and_Co_Angstalor/pseuds/Crazy_not_insane). 
  * Inspired by [Beauty in a Bullet's Shell](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23564020) by [Darkflamej](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkflamej/pseuds/Darkflamej). 



> At LAST this is done  
> Leave a prompt for the girls if you like them, I love them so much.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Log notes on the AC units, property of Doctor H. Wills, current base Kamino.

AC-13 Units: original mold Sonequa Martin-Green  
Batch A:  
/551 Brena  
/588 Ella  
/511 Rye  
/590 Xavia (zah'via)  
/547 Yelena 

Batch B:  
/500 Faun  
/502 Liza Cause of death: drowning  
/503 Helen Cause of death: drowning  
/505 Merida  
/506 Cause of death: reaction to injection. 

AC-37 Units: original mold lost  
Batch X:  
/001 Alys  
/002 Artyc  
/007 Cause of death: damage to tube  
/010 Carr  
/066 Sephie 

Batch Y:  
/319 Drena  
/324 Cause of death: genetic defect  
/333 Tizz  
/351 Cause of death: genetic defect  
/370 Cause of death: genetic defect


	2. The Girls

His number is CC-1010. Out of his batch, he is the most flexible, so they tell him, the most capable one of the stunts that he will be required to sustain as part of the special operations division. Now, he probably isn’t the wisest most intelligent Clone in the works of the sterile buildings on the planet, but he’s no di’kut. He does know that being a CC unit automatically makes him more capable, means he trains harder, means he has more potential that he must surpass then the standard CTs. Not even the near-total isolation Lama Se keeps him in can change the facts he observes: he is simply better. 

The blanket of the bed wrinkles under his hand. He squeezes, smooths, squeezes again.

“Sit still,” the medic orders. Doctor Wills is tall, and skinny, and very pale like he doesn’t get out much. Neither does he, though. In fact he doesn’t think he's ever been out when it wasn’t raining. Yeah, real quality training. Only take the special op out when the storms rage hard enough to swallow him whole, just in case he decides he likes the sun, or there’s another team out where he can see them.

“Am I done?”

Doc taps a few vials together, watching the diffusion of blood and chemicals. “Not yet.”

He sits still, counting vials on the shelves on the other side of the transpari separating him from the lab. There are fifteen more than last time with blood in, and four fewer overall, which means all the saliva tests have been done. When he can’t sleep, he practices turning his eyeshine on and off, theorizing on what the changing vials mean to the Doc and his team. Focussing in, he tries to make the furthest vial more visible, upping the eyeshine, squinting.

“Stop that.”

“Ni ceta.”

Doc grunts. “You always are,” but he doesn’t mind really, so long as his playing doesn’t result in the test results being FUBAR (he learns all sorts of fun acronyms off the Doc) or a persisting migraine for the next week. “Take these.” Five crumbling pills, off-white, but generic. They smell of antibiotics and the tang of inoculations.

“More ‘nocs?”

“Anti-tets and suchlike.” Those are the ones to stop him picking up disease from the dirt – he must be getting assigned. “You remember what number you are?”

“CC-one-oh-one-oh,” he repeats obediently. Doc watches him for a few moments.

“You remember that, okay? Whatever name you get you’ll be you, one-oh.” 

He nods. CC-1010. At least he knows that much, which the Doc told him. He is a CC unit. He has a batch out there. Do they remember him? Maybe they do. It's only been a year since he first woke up, which means they spent nine years together. 

A machine in the lab bleeps. “Right, get out,” orders Doc, responding to his cheeky grin with a wave and eye-roll approaching fond. “Don’t come back until your next tests.”

Bouncing on his feet, he leaves. “Sure thing Doc.”

The door-chime sounds an hour and five minutes after he returns to his bunk. It will be one of the long-necks, because it always is; if Doc needs him for anything his wrist-comm pings three times. He tucks his secret datapad under the mattress, stands to attention when the door slides open as he was taught to do.

“Come,” Lama Su orders. He doesn’t hesitate to follow. It’s not that the long-neck is a positive feature of his life who he wants to spend time with, quite the opposite, but at least he won’t be on his own in his white room with his blue-grey blanket, and he can just and so detect a new scent on them. This ought to be interesting, he thinks in sharp curiosity.

They lead him down halls he may or may not have ventured down in his nightly sneaking, passing the doors he can never manage to get through, all the way down to the Red Door. This is the absolute furthest he ever managed to sneak (training/punishment that week had been brutal enough for him to strike it off his list of destinations). Lama Su pauses, gazing at him with those hauntingly intelligent black eyes. He does not tremble, even when his hackles raise and the urge to snarl, to resist, to growl and snap and escape, rushes his blood.

Silently, the Red Door opens. What is the name for what he feels? Not fear or nervousness. Anticipation, that was it. Doc taught him that word too. 

“These are the girls,” Lama Su tells him, serenely waving an arm out to the gaggle of fifteen ‘girls’ lined up, gaps left where he can tell there should be another batchmate. There are two types: eight pale, with hair only slightly less white than the walls, and seven dark, with skin even darker than his. The pale girls have eyes in shades of grey-blue, and the dark girls have dark brown. He doesn’t look like them. He doesn’t look like the rest of his batch either, he doesn’t think, considering all the other Clones he’s seen have dark hair and dark eyes. “This is CC-1010. He is your new team member.”

“I’m Sephie,” the pale girl with the longest hair says. Her head comes up to his eyebrows. “We’re near-human.” Near-human? That’s pretty cool, actually.   
A dark girl sighs. “I’m Merida,” she tells him, holding her hand for him to shake. “I like your eyes.”

“I like your hair,” he answers, fumbling a bit because he’s never actually talked to anyone before. Except Doc, but then Doc doesn’t count. “I don’t have a name yet.”

Lama Su slides elegantly from the room, the door closing and locking behind them. They're supposed to all get acquainted, apparently, which would be easier if he could concentrate beyond the new scents almost keeling him over. 

They smell – alive.

Sweat.

Warmth.

A lighter scent than his own, or those of other Clones he sometimes catches an infuriatingly scintillating hint of. 

“Are you alright?” 

He looks back to Merida, knowing he shouldn’t just ignore them to stare at the ceiling whilst he pulls himself together. “Ni ceta. New scents.”

One of the curly-haired dark girls – women – perks up, looking at him curiously. “Scents?”

“Yeah,” he gestures vaguely to his face, “I, uh, it’s a mutation.”

“A useful one.” She draws closer, offers him her hand, and he is hit by a waft of almost nauseating salt-water scent. She’s been outside, exercising. Now that’s she’s close, he can see that her ears are sharply pointed. A mutation? No, her sisters have the sharp ears too. “Brena. Can you learn our scents?”

Can he? “Sure, probably, but not right now or I’ll go into overload.” He actually kind of misses the blandness of his bunk right now, surrounded as he is by new scents and the red accents on the walls. It makes him feel a bit twitchy. “I get overwhelmed.”

Really, how do people handle it? All those eyes on him, watching him, judging him – this isn't like being assessed by members of the Cuy’val, this is something far more personal. These girls assess him on his personality, not his ability to pull off what should be an impossible stunt. His hackles rise, lips curling back from sharp teeth, an instinctive resistance to their prying. 

“Oh, that’s something,” Brena says with sharp interest. He feels a bit like he’s on one of Doc’s slides under the microscope as she gestures for him to drop his head a little to show off his eyes. “Do they glow like that if the lights are off?”

“Yeah.”

“Sweet,” she says, punching him gently in the shoulder. “Welcome to the team.”

He glances around. “Thanks, I think.” The amount of red in the room – a sort of entryway, then – makes his skin crawl, as if by dint of being the colour of blood it can stir up the feral heart of him. “Any idea why I’m here?”

Sephie watches him. “We’re a person short of two full teams and we need a male presence for a mission soon.” Her voice reminds him of the clips of Jetii he’s watched, all serene and controlled and guiding gently. Manipulative. 

Decorative weaponry. Sounds about right, really. What else is he designed for but to be a weapon? What else would he be good for? 

The room is a dorm, but instead of the pods the other Clones have, it’s like his own room, with cots and thin pads and equally thin blankets. What had Doc told him? Positive emotions towards an enriched environment to increase productivity and effectiveness in the field, or words to that effect. Hence they get blankets, and cot-beds, instead of the sleeping-pods. There’s a quintet of empty beds. At the end of each bed is a plastoid crate. 

“You can pick where you want, but maybe we should do a full reorganise,” Brena says dryly. They consider the room, Brena and Sephie and he, for another minute. He’s greatly relieved the others have filtered away. There’s some odd cracks in the ceiling, spidering out from a round indent, and he scolds himself for taking so long to realise it’s an impact mark, probably from a spinning kick if he’s any good at judging impacts. “If we shove the five empty beds to the door end, you can have one of those, and we’ll bump up our beds a bit, that way you have a bit of privacy.”

“I don’t think I want it,” he admits, remembering half-dreams of warm arms and brotherhood. The girls nod in agreement – they’ve never been isolated like him; he can very nearly taste the pity they hold for him. 

Sephie speaks. “We’ll sort the beds some other time, but let’s ask Madam for a curtain for you. That way you, or we, have somewhere to sit or change or whatever.”

He grunts, reaching up to knuckle the ache in his shoulder where he strained it a few days ago. Do they want him to sleep apart from them? They deserve their privacy, and this is their home, all full of sleep-scent and body-heat. “What,” he asks when he notices them staring at him. 

“That’s one hell of a bend,” Sephie remarks. 

Vulpe shrugs, arm still twisted, and they grimace.

“That’s fuckin’ weird, mate,” says Brena. “Wizard.”

They three stare at him for a minute longer, expressions between disgusted and intrigued. "Anyway, you should go get your stuff.”

He would, but he isn’t entirely sure he’s allowed to leave the Red Door to go back to his own bunk, not when the last time he ventured down this hall he was beaten – what had been Doc’s phrase? “Six ways from Sunday,” that was it, bruises over every inch of his body from where the Cuy’val thrashed him on the floor. When was that? Seven standard months ago? Certainly not long enough ago for him to have forgotten the threat. “Am I allowed to?”

“We should try anyway. The door’s automatic, if you’re allowed through it’ll open,” explains Brena, guiding him to the door. Her eyes burn expectantly into his. 

Yeah, no. Not happening. “I’ll wait,” he insists. “Let’s get the room changed up.”


	3. Mission

The music is full of strong bass beats and bellowed lyrics he doesn’t always understand – he doesn’t care to. His blood is racing, nothing matters beyond the throb of the beat and the pulsing of his heart, there is nobody of importance beyond the dark-and-light contrasts of his sisters leaping with him. Elbows and ribs are too close for comfort, but when have they cared for bruises? Jumping and screaming out old songs is better than even the kindest of their training.

Another song starts, plucked strings and rhythmic percussion, wailing into his heart – he knows this one, a song of sea-sailors and mostly-forgotten pirate tales. Artyc hauls him closer, whirling him around her off to the next sister, and they spin, bellowing up into the bland ceilings, lost in a crowd of people they’d never truly imagined could exist. Alcohol has gone straight to their heads, and it feels like flying or freedom or the seconds before hitting the ground after falling from the top bars. A tall man brushes up again Merida; it is a mistake he will not make again, staggering away from her gasping for air after a sharp elbow to the solar plexus. Vulpe snarls, baring his sharp teeth, and laughs when the man’s friends decide that the risk outweighs all possible rewards.

Their wrist-comms buzz, the lights flicking green. It’s time to act, time for them to prove their worth to the kaminiise, the pressure omnipresent. 

_If you fail, one of you dies. What a shame it would be to waste all that potential.  
_

Like mist, Merida and Artyc melt through the throng, barely registering in his awareness as they pull back to the darkness at the back of the room. _Countdown_ , Alys orders, her hands flicking the signs above her head – the significance lost to all of the other people around them. Strobing lights would be damaging to their eyes if they were anything less than perfectly advanced, the music is thankfully well balanced, although maybe the bass should be pushed a few clicks – not that Merida would appreciate that. 

_Three.  
_

The song changes to one of Sephie’s favourites. 

_Two.  
_

Alys presses into his side, hand on the blasters he hides strapped to his waist under the loose shirt he wears under the guise of giving him a half-hug. 

_One.  
_

The bar explodes, sending shards of glass and splinters of wood flying across the dance floor. In one movement, Vulpe hurls his sister in the direction of the target as she starts firing, a blaster in each hand. Oh, he grins wildly as he kicks a Rodian in the chest and rakes his claws down the face of a Weequay who’d been a bit too close to Merida, he loves this thrill even more than the pulse of the song that is still playing.

_Mark!  
_

From where the end of the bar should have been, Artyc lets out a trilling whoop, crashes into a gang member and throws a bold human woman over her hip. “Call General Kenobi,” screams the bar manager, tries and fails to get his rifle fixed on him. Perhaps he would stand a chance on a reg, or even a less experienced ARC, but Vulpe is the best CC unit in the galaxy. Better than the best. Neither he nor his three sisters remain still long enough for anyone to catch them in the sights, moving off each other’s body language with as much ease as if they were communicating, leaving carnage being them. 

Vulpe yips twice when he’s cleared a space, downed enough people to hide the trail, the signal for the squad to move out. Artyc and Merida are gone; then he sees the white flash of Alys’ hair pass under the neon entry, and he moves, leaping up to the window and kicking it out. Shards scatter around him as he lands, leaving him shaking them from his hair. The mess will help over up their traces from whatever justice seekers the barkeep can afford. His sisters are waiting to drag him into a sprint, racing away from the scene of the crime before the owner makes good on his threat to call the Jetii and his men.

“You get him?”

“Obviously,” snorts Alys. “You?”

“Yep.” They dart down an alley unto a courtyard that stinks of rotting vegetation, listening to the rapid clanking tramp of rushing Troopers down the rough street. “That was fun.” Not a single one of them is panting audibly, despite the heaving of their chests.

Alys slides her hand into his, squeezes gently, eyes closed to concentrate on the scents in the air. “We’ll hit up a club next stop,” she promises. Her twin grins, beatifically innocent. 

“Or we could just go to a different one. We have other clothes,” suggests Merida, releasing her hair from the bun. It fluffs out in wild black spirals around her head. He knows by Artyc’s smirk it was probably her idea to allow the missions to take just a little longer. 

This is such a bad plan. “Amazing idea. Let’s go clean up,” he says, cherishing the low whoop of glee from the twins. It may be Alys’ mission, but they’re Vulpe’s aliit, and if he tells Lama Su that the extra few hours was necessary for the continued smooth functioning of the team, they will probably accept it. 

Tramping feet barrel past once more, so they scramble up onto the roof for a higher vantage point. There – that’s the place they just blew out, crawling with Clone Troopers marked in 212th yellow, with the brown-robed figure of their General in their midst. Watching Jedi makes him itchy, as if he must act, or like there’s someone whispering to him. His fingers brush the hilt of his blaster. He looks away towards the neon string of lights marking the strip of slighter higher quality clubs. Given the chance to get cleaned up, they’ll be able to blend in. Twins, a female friend, and a male friend built like a proverbial brick shithouse? They’ll blend right in to the rest of the rabble on this little planet. 

“I think that’s a fresher-house,” whispers Artyc, pointing out a simple black building. 

“Think so,” Alys agrees. “Chase?”

Their other sister raises her fine brows. “Really?”

“Sure, why not?”

Merida barks a laugh. Vulpe shakes his head fondly: she’s always been an agent of mayhem. It’s no surprise that she wants to play rooftop tag across town as the evidence of their crimes smoulders behind them. They send him a glance, checking for permission, but this is Alys’ mission. He grins. “What’ya looking at me for? I’m it, aren’t I?”

His sisters dart away, silent like ghosts, pouring over the edge of the rickety roof. He plunges after them, relishes the wind in his hair as blood dries under his nails. Troops pass below them, tramping through the slummy city like ghouls, but they’re beneath his notice. After all, he’s special ops and they simply...aren’t. 

Home is not Kamino, except that it is. Home is not inside the Red Doors, except that it is. They have far more free range than the other Vode – except that they don’t, because Lama Su has decided to store them when they’re not needed, since they’re not deployed on permanent placement like the other Clones of the GAR.   
Cryofreezing. Shoving them into sleeping pods and almost _kindly_ switching them off, so that between missions they’re not causing trouble, simply girls and boy in boxes in what is their bedroom. Now, where there used to be the four empty beds and plastic crates lie the cryopods, all of their cots shoved together up in one end of the room. He sits on the floor in front of Sephie’s pod, just tall enough to prop his chin on the window of it and look in at her face, all angelic with the white braids. 

“It was fun,” he tells her, places his hand where hers would lie. She’s his vod’ika, his closest sister, his confidant; Vulpe tells her everything. “You’d have really enjoyed the club; the music was surprisingly well balanced. Played some of the best.” Sephie’s frozen face gives no reaction, not even the flutter of eyelids. “I miss you.”

“Vul,” Alys murmurs, “time.”

One last brush of his brown fingers to her pale cheek, separated by the transpari. “Jate’kara, vod.”

He strips down to his blacks, just as his sisters have done, folds his armoured layers, tucks his blasters and blades and everything that he can call his into the plastoid crate with his name scrawled over it in blood-red ink. CC-1010/Vulpe, it reads. Inside it is his whole life. A datapad with very limited holonet access. A bottle or two of dye for darkening his hair. A box of contact lenses to change his eye colour. All the marks of a spy, or a contract killer. 

What glory is there in this life, except in the company of his sisters? 

Madam strides in, her crimson hair casting reddish shadows. “Into your pods,” she orders curtly. They obey, of course they obey. 

Vulpe keeps his eyes on Merida as she watches him from above. She will be the last thing he sees, now; it is his dearest wish that when he marches away his sisters will be there waiting for him. Sephie will be the last face he sees when he marches away, painted into his heart with the rest of his sisters held deep and dear, the very breath of his lungs. His vode’ike. 

_Vode an, ner vod’ika.  
Ni ceta, ni kyr- - -   
_


	4. Accident

Coruscant is always the worst place to try and finish a job. It smells, and is often practically crawling with Vode who would recognise him as one of them, and it’s got a whole Jedi Temple. And he’s on sniper duty.   
Vulpe despises sniper duty. Sephie can handle it, that’s why she’s _here,_ otherwise it would just be him and Tizz, but the buyer apparently demanded that they have a real sniper with backup (him), and that they do it all discreetly (as if they wouldn’t) so he’s perched on a residential building, on the balcony of a Senator no less, covering Sephie whilst she waits for the shot. 

_If you get seen, one of you dies.  
_

Lama Su deserves to be immortalised for unethical medical malpractice, and of course, a mercenary attitude that would drive most bounty hunters to shame. What a bitch move. Still, at least he knows now why they are five batchers short. Merely the threat of one of his sisters being unplugged, turned off, left to just decay in her pod, is more than sufficient to ensure his obedience. 

“How’s it?”

“Boring,” he grunts into the comm, focusing in on a gaggle of Clones in blue-marked armour spilling out of one of the clubs. Another thing about Coruscant: they can’t even go out for fear of recognition. “All I can smell is this Senator’s house, but it’s not too bad. Kinda salty, and also fruit, for some reason.”

His kih’vod'ika makes a small noise of interest, before he hears her chatting someone up. With any luck, the mark will follow her out of the bar, Sephie will make the shot, and they can all go home early. 

They don’t get their luck. 

“Hi.”

_Fuck.  
_

“Senator,” he rumbles, not moving, but his hackles are up, and his eyes are alight, and he knows exactly where she is. How thick can a guy be? Lulled into security by her absence, when it seems that she just has a very mild scent naturally, and he hadn’t even checked her bedroom, trusting his advanced senses to pick up any movement. That’s what he gets for arrogance and overconfidence. 

_Fuck, we’re made. Lama Su -  
_

She rustles when she moves around to his line of vision. 

_What are you doing, di’kut? Go, go, get away.  
_

“My name is Riyo Chuchi,” says the Senator. She must be in her mid-twenties or so, probably, with pretty green curves on her blue cheeks and creamy purple-tinted hair tumbling over her shoulders. “What are you doing?"

Vulpe snarls over his rifle when the comms burst into sound, shooting off a few rounds above the now screaming crowd down where the mark is dead, and Tizz is hamming it up as she does. How stupid can he get, nearly missing the shot because of some woman. He’s endangered his aliit. 

Senator Riyo Chuchi gasps. “You’re an assassin,” she breathes. “Are you a deserter? I won’t tell anyone,” she rushes to assure him. “I swear.”

He drops his forehead to the sniper barrel, still snarling under his breath. “I will know if you do and I’ll kill you and everyone you tell, understand?”

“Yes,” she whispers, stepping away. Nothing good comes of terrified people, he knows; he has to breathe, calm himself. Slowly his eyes dim as he forces himself to relax. 

“I’m going to leave and you’re never going to mention this in any way to anybody, okay?”

Senator Riyo nods. “Okay.”

Rifles disconnect with gentle clicks, but with practice the process can be done in total silence, especially when one has advanced hearing abilities. However, with an equal amount of practice, the pieces can be made to snick. He watches her as he rapidly twists the rifle down to its essentials, detecting every half-flinch and the way she licks at that pinkish-tinted bottom lip. He – he kind of wants to lick it too, and that makes him deeply uncomfortable. What sort a Commander is he is he gets distracted by pretty Senators who, through his own arrogance, have jeopardised the team? No better than the bastards he beats up in back-alleys.

“Are you leaving?”

“Yes,” he answers lowly, more a hint at the word. The pretty Senator Riyo Chuchi nods slowly. 

“May I touch you?”

May she _what_?

A flush rises up her cheeks, darkening her skin into rich royal blue as she sways backwards a step. “I’m sorry, that was horribly out of line.”

The comms crackle meaningfully. Sephie and Tizz are waiting on him to gets his shebs in gear and move out.

“I’ll just,” she starts, then startles when he snaps his hand out towards her. Where the sleeve of his blacks has ridden up between his armoured overlayer and his gloves is revealed a stripe of brown skin. Her eyes dart from his face to his hand. “May I?”

Fuckit, Vulpe snips to himself, why not, since they’re here. Senator Chuchi’s fingers are soft, gentle, barely a tickle over the warmth of his bared skin. She weaves a spell with her touch, entrancing him so much he knows his face has relaxed, winds her scent – delicate, like those little green plums Denna brought back that time – around him like smoke or incense. Her hard nails dent the skin, rasp gently over the hem of his armour. Of all his sisters, Carr has the smallest hands, strong and hard and scarred over. Riyo’s hands aren’t quite as small, her fingers longer, but the blue of her skin is almost encased by the black of his gloves when she sets her palm to his. Reflexively, he curls his fingers over hers. Watching her hand disappear under his – he’s so hot, as if he’s back in that desert under an unforgiving sun, sweat prickling at his neck. What is he _doing_? 

“Vulpe, time to go,” crackles Sephie down the comm.   
The spell is broken. 

“Wait!”

He tips his head, watching her. The soft weave of his bandana shifts with his breath, settled over his nose and mouth with the sort of speed gained from years of timed exercises. 

“Will I see you again?” 

Only if she’s a target, and even then, no. “No.”

And he leaps from the balcony, landing two stories down with a hard thud, springing down and down towards the street illuminated in neon shop-signs. Her summer-fruit smell winds up his nose. 

The vode of the 501st are idiots. Foolhardy and headstrong. Stubborn. Absolute bastards.   
Frankly, though, he admires them for their understanding of the concept of sereshoy. The Coruscant Guard, armour painted in simple red patterns to hide them among each other, are attempting to get a report of the situation. Given the fact they’ve all got excellent memories, either by genetics or training, that isn’t great for the team. With his face hidden under the bandana and goggles he’s safe enough, and he’s craving a good fight after the emotional upheaval of Riyo Chuchi and her soft, small hands. Nothing clears the sinuses like a good scrap. Grit crunches under his boots as he struts forward, revelling in the stench of blood from the still-warm target; his rifle is catching eyes, the blackness of his armoured letheris blending him into the shadows. 

“You looking at something?” demands one of the blue-tinted soldiers, stereotypically annoyed by the roll of Vulpe’s shoulders and silence of his boots. 

Sue him. Vulpe very enthusiastically throws the first punch, targeting the authoritative blond who dares open his mouth in threat. Who will reach their blasters first? He ducks the returned punch easily, slides underneath the blond Captain’s reach with ease – after all, they can’t fight against his style. They’ve most of them never had the chance to before. Music spills out of the club into the street, and he pants the lyrics under his breath as he lands a mocking slap on the Captains forehead, back bowing unnaturally to dodge the retaliating strike.

“Murderer,” spits the man. Vulpe barks what could be called a laugh, if you can’t see the sneering tilt of his brows, which of course his brothers can’t. It takes mere minutes to get his arm around the man’s neck and drag him up the side of the building with the grapple in his right vambrace; his shoulder is probably going to be fine despite the ache the extra weight causes. Fine. Probably. Who is he kidding, he felt that pulling, and Carr is going to have his hide. 

Vulpe pins the man – a CT, going by his weight, the Captain who heads the 501st is a CT unit, very interesting – easily, knowing his body is coiled up in a manner that disconcerts even his sisters. “You’re going to give me some information.”

“Never,” the CT spits. Annoyed, he tugs back his cowl and goggles, leaving the bandana secure around his jaw. The Captain freezes at the sight of reddish hair. 

“So, you know me,” he observes. “Who am I?”

The CT struggles to throw Vulpe, but his heart isn’t in it. “You’re – you’re Fox. CC-1010. Ner ori’vod.”

Vulpe stares down at the man. Fox. So he has the same name as he did before recommisioning, conveniently. How does he know this CT? 

“You, they decommissioned you.”

He doesn’t grace the statement with an answer; he is obviously not dead. 

“Why didn’t you come back? Don’t you know we want you back?”

Such sorrow, such raw grief from a man who is not of his batch, is unexpected. Snarling, he answers, “I have no idea who you are.”

“I’m Rex.”

“Don’t care,” he answers lightly as if he wasn’t just snarling, as if he isn’t tempted to tear at the man’s throat for having laid eyes on his face, for having broken their directive to remind unnoticeable. His blade is light in his hand when he presses it into Rex’ rib, a sharp beskar thing he stole from a Mandalorian bounty hunter they worked beside one time a few months ago. It’ll be an easy kill. Except. 

This man is like him. Different. A bit of an aberration. He knew him, once, loved him too most likely if the teary reaction is anything to go by. He... 

He doesn’t want to kill Rex. 

“I don’t want to kill you,” Vulpe tells the man, just-so pricking the skin over his heart with the tip of the knife, hardens his eyes until they glow bright enough amber-gold that he can see the light from inside himself reflected in Rex’ dark, frightened, eyes. “Don’t tell anyone, alright? If you do, we’ll kill you, and everyone who knows about us. Silent, understand?”

“Elek. Elek, Fox,” croaks Rex. Vulpe scoffs. 

“I’m not Fox,” he warns. 

He springs upwards just as one of the other men reaches the balcony. Riyo Chuchi’s scent is still present, but buried below a myriad of blood-stinks from the street. Two people in one night who’ve got close enough to touch and been allowed to walk away. 

Sloppy. He drops down into the designated meeting-place. 

Tizz slams him immediately into the wall, sharp nails digging into his carteroid in evident threat. “You fool,” she snarls, fingers twitching.

“I didn’t,” he starts to say, but she slams him back again, brows lifting from ‘pissed’ to ‘incredulous’. 

“I cannot believe you let him go,” she spits, “Clone Trooper are not our brothers, understood? You run with us. You’re one of ours. What did you want with him anyway, huh? We have all our info.” Sephie is silent at the alleys opening, long hair in a tight braid down her spine, unmoving. Some part of him wishes his vod’ika would just turn, show him her disappointment that he endangered them with softness, but a greater part of him knows that Tizz needs – deserves – his full attention. 

What she says is true, he is their brother, he has no bond to the rest of the GAR beyond the fact his batch is out there somewhere; but when he was face to face with that Caption with the blond hair it felt wrong to force the blade into his ribs.

_Don’t tell anyone, alright? If you do, we’ll kill you, and everyone who knows about us. Silent, understand?  
_

“I knew him.”

Tizz’ white hair fluffs when she shakes her head. He’ll offer to cut it for her later, on the transport back to base. “You didn’t. Remember what the Madam said.”

_Of course, if he regains any memories, we’ll re-wipe, but it would be detrimental to progress as a team.  
_

“Why would you let him go?”

Vulpe gazes down into his sister’s eyes. “He was my brother.”

“And we are your sisters, ner ori’vod’ika.”

After another threatening brush of acrylic-painted nails to his throat Tizz releases him, resting her brow against his as her eyes, the same dark grey-blue of the waters of Kamino, bore straight through his head into his soul. “You’re too dear to us to let you get wiped or decommissioned, alright?” For a few seconds they just breathe together, chests brushing on the inhale. “Alright. Let’s go.” 

Sephie leads the way, sniper rifle strapped across her back. They tug their bandanas up, hiding their mouths, and Tizz rakes dirt into her hair, spiking it up with a mission’s worth of sweat and grime; he doesn’t need much adapting, so long as he avoids any of the other Clones on this planet and nobody looks too closely at what little skin he reveals. The 501st are set to lift off tomorrow, according to Sephie’s report (why hadn’t he been surprised by the fact that the Vod she drugged was Fives? He doesn’t know a Fives) that she _lifted_ for them. All of the techniques the Madam ensured they learned get used on these information-assassination missions, even the ones that leave them sat in the darkness of their transport working their way through a packet of deathsticks, but they have the information they need. 

“Got any smoke?” 

“Nah,” Tizz spits, “expensive here.”

“Back on the ship?”

She shrugs, and he translates it to ‘yes but you’ve lost your right to them’, which is fair. It takes an hour to trudge through Coruscant, working their way up balconies and skyscrapers to the flat roof of a remarkably seedy tower of offices where Carr is waiting with the transport. Neither of his sisters say a word to him; not exactly unusual after a mission like this one, but the silence is stinging and heavy and full of half-betrayed indignance. 

Carr is stood in the doorway. “How’d it go?”

“Eh.”

Sephie says nothing, which is far more telling than any of Tizz’ sharp noises. Their smallest sister nods, hair dancing when she nods. 

“Vul?”

He sighs, drops into the seat to strap in for leaving the system. “I’ll talk to you later,” promises the exhausted man, relaxing into the headrest. Hyperspeed comes quickly, pushing him into the seat with the low jolt of it. It must be Tizz piloting. Carr is still watching him, steady and immovable. Even with his eyes shut tight he feels her intent gaze. “I... There was a vod. One who knew me. He told me my name used to be Fox.”

Silence buds, but a gentle one of thoughtfulness. “Did you kill him?”

“No,” he admits.

Carr hums low in her throat. “If this comes back to bite us we die.”

He knows. Madam wouldn’t hesitate to switch off any of their cryopods to reach them a lesson. Brena and Drenna first, their slicers; then perhaps one of the twins, or Yelena who specialises in seduction and undercover, able to switch her personality on the flip of a chip – after all, what is there that she can do that her sisters cannot (the answer is surprisingly much)? Oh yes. If the Madam or Lama Su hears about his brush with the CT they’re doomed. 

“Vul. I won’t tell.”

Their hands meet, just a brush of fingers. “I love you.”

Carr huffs, drawing away. “Get some rest.”


	5. Solo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Vulpe takes a trip to Coruscant, Doc is kinda alright, he dances at a fancy party, and Alys punches Fives in the face and it's beautiful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair Warning belongs to @ghostwriterofthemachine

Awareness is one of those things that he underestimates the impact of, except for in those first five minutes after being defrosted. This is the fifth time, he knows; only five, because Doc ensures none of them spend too much time being frozen then woken in a cycle. Once or twice? Not a problem. But five times? Ten? Thirty? Oh, then they get unstable. Vulpe and his sisters are not simply blasters to be directed at a target, he’d protested, they are crack assassins and spies and very, very expensive to develop and train.

“Can you hear me?”

Doc. “Yeah,” he manages to croak, his eyesight coming back slowly. No slower than last time, though, so small silver linings, right?

“See my finger?” 

In migraine-inducing detail, yes, he can. If he can just dial back the eyeshine his vision will recalibrate, but he can’t just yet. Hibernation sickness hinders his control.   
“That’s okay. We’ll try again in a minute.” Doc draws away, coming into focus gradually. He has a clipboard, and the pen scratches against it too loud for Vulpe. If he was a fox like his namesake he would pin his ears to his head and snarl, but he is not, so he waits. “How’s your head?”

“Foggy.”

Doc hums. “Sit down. I’ll keep them busy for ten minutes, let you get yourself together.” He is left in the room, the lab, by himself. What other small mercies can Doc afford to them? Could he save them, if he so wished? Probably not, Vulpe accepts, but still. He’d like Doc to try.

Vulpe doesn’t dream. Dreaming is what Yelena does, or Sephie; dark dreams of the terrors they’ve seen and horrors they’ve committed. He isn’t so ignorant of his own culture to suppose he’s anything but a dar’manda demagolka; isn’t so ignorant to consider himself anything but lucky that he doesn’t dream. 

Well. He has one dream. A voice whispers through his mind, telling him to kill the Jedi – not even a whole whisper, merely an impulse, like the roar of a waterfall, to destroy. Eliminate. See the Jedi gone. It’s like an itch to be scratched. 

He mentioned it to Carr once. None of his sisters has ever had the same dream. 

It starts like this: he is on Coruscant. He is in armour, plastoid, red-marked, with his men – the Vode – surrounding him. He is himself, yet not Vulpe. Inside him is that whisper, silky, like Sephie or Yelena’s voices when they’re manipulating a mark, ordering him to destroy. A Jedi lights his blade, and he kills him. 

Then he wakes up. 

Then he dreams it again. 

Sometimes, he kills the Jedi with a vibroblade, or his beskars, or his rifle; but always he is on Coruscant, and he can smell it, taste it, the pain and fear and death and ashes. 

“Why Coruscant?”

Doc doesn’t answer as he washes the dye from his hair. 

“Doc?” 

“I don’t know,” but they both know Doc is lying. He knows something, as he always does. “You got your contacts?” 

“Yeah.”

“Put them in.”

Vulpe does, and the man in the mirror isn’t CC-1010 anymore. He has dripping-wet regulation hair and regulation eyes and regulation just-about-everything. Even the scars on his cheekbones have been healed up to the point that he can hardly find them himself. “Who am I?”

“ARC-10/547.”

He looks up at Doc curiously, wonders why he wears Yelena’s number as part of his disguise. Probably a reminder that he’s undercover. Doc hands him a towel. He scrubs it over his hair and stands straight, before Doc has chance to tell him to correct his stature.

“You’re a specialist undercover operative attached to the Coruscant Guard for two standard months. Do not get attached, savvy? All you’re there to do is do protection details and relay information.”

There are questions he could ask. Why not Yelena? Why not just slice the information? Why is it Doc who tells him, and not the Madam? Even if he does ask, he’ll get no answers, and he knows to savour his questions. They are to be saved up, like his requests to Madam. Doc can be convinced into niceness, sometimes.

“Senator,” he rumbles obediently, bowing his head to her. She is somehow even more beautiful than he remembers from his dreams of the mission he almost messed up, hair a little less purple, cheek marks maybe a shade paler. “Can I help you?”

Riyo Chuchi smiles, resplendent in a shimmering red slip of a dress crusted in probably-real gems, refracting the light. “Would you dance with me, Trooper?”

“Blackout,” he provides, really hoping that she doesn’t ask how he got the name. It’s mildly embarrassing. According to the staff in 79’s, he still hasn’t paid his tab. 

Her smile is more radiant than the brightest of stars. “Trooper Blackout. I very much do not want to dance with the officer making his way across the hall.”

Yeah, that guy is a creep. They don’t let the Shinies near him. “Entirely understandable,” he agrees. Riyo laughs up into his face, and wow, she found a perfume that makes her smell like a grocer’s, highlighting the scent of fruit and blossoms; Vulpe honestly thinks his heart skipped a beat. Her arms are encased in opera-length gloves the same rich blood-red of her dress, of the accents of his dress uniform. “I can only do two dances.”

“Can you manage this one?”

He listens to the opening bars, placing it as one of the jazzy tunes Niko enjoys listening to. Coincidentally, it’s one of his favourites. “I can, Senator Chuchi.”

So she takes him by the hand and leads him out onto the floor and they dance, full of the energy of youth and his own love of dancing. This is the farthest cry from dancing with his sisters in dark clubs when on a mission; he is in the light and in probably far more danger. Oh, he trusts the Vode to have his back, but they aren’t his sisters. His sisters are his team in a way that not even his temporary special ops boys are, his sisters and he don’t need to talk, or sign; they may as well be telepaths. “You’re a natural, Senator,” he compliments, trying not to think of the blood on his hands, the scars on his body, how very much he is unworthy to hear her laughter. He is not Vulpe, here, and he must repress all of the memories that would make him that assassin on the balcony, and be no more than a regulation Clone with uniform features. 

Funny, but only a few months after he’d told her he’d never see her again, here he is on her protection detail with her slight body mere inches from his own as they whirl around the dancefloor with great poise. Merida would get a kick out of this, the sheer irony of the situation.

79’s is the clone bar, everyone on the city planet knows that. If his sisters do want to make contact with him, it will be here. The 501st are here tonight, their blue-accented armour scrubbed clean, a Clone’s version of courting behaviour like a bird preening bright feathers. He watches the door, trying to stay in the mindset of Blackout and not slip into the wild euphoria he wants to unleash. Vulpe adores clubbing. Blackout does too. At least he got that much right, building himself a new personality in his first few days here. 

He watches the door for the moment they arrive – he isn’t sure who it will be, just that they’re coming – but he knows as soon as he sees Fair Warning that tonight is going to be interesting in the extremes, and he’ll have rather a lot of explaining to do in the morning. Behind Warning comes Yelena, her hair short now, sticking up in lovely tight curls, and dyed with green streaks. She looks awesome. A minute later come the twins, and he grins with all his teeth. Stars, but he’s missed his sisters. 

“Four more of these,” he tells the bartender, tapping his glass of tihaar then flashing four fingers. The bartender looks from the four girls to him with a smirk, and turns to fill the glasses. Fair Warning drapes herself over his back, and his wild grin shifts softer, a true smile.

“My hands are freezing,” she complains, pressing them into his cheeks, voice muffled in his hair.

“Get off, Warning,” he mock-whines, exaggerating his shiver to shift her hands, taking them in his. She always seems to have cold hands. “What have you been doing?”

Warning doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t expect her to. Yelena leans in and drops a kiss on his cheek, her perfume floral this time. She always was more inclined to affectionate displays. Alys steals his drink and Artyc snags his bowl of crisps; neither of them has changed at all. “Heya, brother,” says Alys. Artyc salutes mockingly. Already, they’re garnering attention, jealous stares and snide glances from the other brothers in the bar, wondering what Blackout from the Guard has to do with four beautiful ladies, armed and strong. “How you doing?”

Vulpe leans into the weight of Warning at his back, cherishes the closeness of Yelena in front of him, almost indecently close. “Missing you,” he admits. The song changes, a fast heavy beat and lyrics they know, a song he has memories of screaming in a Rim tavern with Merida on that mission where they accidentally-on-purpose blew up the target. “Dance?” 

With a sharp grin Yelena knocks back Alys’ shot. “You’re working, ‘lys,” she teases at her sisters’ outrage and grabbing hands. “Come on Warning, I want a kiss or two out of tonight.”

He rolls his eyes, standing up as Warning bounces far too enthusiastically over to wrap her arm in Yelena’s, already assessing the clustered brothers in slacks and civvies and armour. “Yelena,” he begins, but she laughs at him and he sighs. Losing battles, and all that. Warning, still pressed into Yelena like they’re teenagers giggling over their crushes, grabs his hand and hauls him onto the dance floor. The twins stay at the bar, Artyc leaning over it to eye up the bottles of good stuff hidden under the counter. 

“Do you need a wing-woman, Vul?” she teases, eyes crinkling in glee at his embarrassed flush. Yelena squeals.

“You have a crush!” 

He should have stayed in the barracks and taken his brothers for everything they have in sabacc. He should’ve gone parkouring with the other CCs. “I do not,” he refutes, because he still has his pride, stars damn it. “Shut up, I thought we were dancing.” They both laugh at him even harder, and he knows tonight will end sat high up somewhere precarious as they pour out their hearts.

Over at the bar, two boys in 501st blue armour approach the twins. He recognises them as Fives and Echo of Domino Squad attached to Torrent; remembers them from ARC training he’d observed a while ago, remembers that their three other batchers are various special ops for the 501st. They’d all been through together, he recalls, a squad unusually unified and dedicated. Doc had let him and the 13/5s sit in to observe their training. Warning slaps his arm to get his attention again.

“They’re grown and dangerous,” she yells over the music, “Relax, Vul!”

Grown and dangerous only means that within the next five minutes, Echo is staring adoringly at Artyc as she leans into his space, arms flying around as she chatters away, eyes shining. Her hair reflects the light, blue and red, and her eyes are glittering. It's no wonder the kid is falling for her, body curling down towards her, heads close. Fives and Alys, on the other hand, look seconds away from coming to blows. 

Yelena nudges his rib. “Hey,” she says, “Artyc can handle anything that comes up, yeah?”

He sighs, still eyeing the Domino boys and their advances on his sisters. “Yeah, I know.”

“The Madam isn’t here, she’ll never know. It’s safe.” Stars above, but he wants to believe her, wants to share that faith. Of them all, Yelena has seen the worst; if she says they’re safe, if Warning agrees with her, then Vulpe will take their word for it. Alys is a tried and tested field operative, assassin. 

Surprisingly, she lasts another four songs before he hears her screeching in fury, and turns just quickly enough to see her fist slam into Fives’ face. Whatever caused this, he swears, he’s going to be having words. Warning grabs his arm. “Stand down, soldier,” she cautions, “look, she knocked him out.”

“I’m so proud,” chimes Yelena. He just sighs. When the Commanders hear about this he’s going to come under even more scrutiny, and two months of deep cover here on Coruscant have stretched his patience for absurdity.

The bartender throws them out of the bar, all seven of them. Fives is draped woozily over his brother’s shoulders, slurring a little. Warning is keeping him away from the twins, trying her hardest to prevent him carrying Alys off to have a strict lecture about boundaries and appropriate behaviour and why knocking a Clone out in a clone-filled bar in Coruscant is one of her worse ideas. Still. No Blues have followed them out for revenge, so there’s that going for them at least. 

Echo turns to Alys, apologetically hefting his brother’s weight. “I am so sorry, ma’am. My brother is an idiot.”

She sniffs haughtily. “I noticed.”

He then turns to Artyc, whole body softening as though he wants to draw her closer. “I am sorry, Artyc,” the ARC says, “but I would like to try this again sometime.”

“Tomorrow,” she says with a smile. “Our team gets attached to the 501st in five days.”

Vulpe whips his head to stare at his sister; he hadn’t been expecting that. “And me?”

“You too, brother,” Alys provides. He grins, a vulptix in the cream. 

“I’m getting sick of the city,” he quips, pleased to be on the move again. “Any of the others?”

“Meri, Faun.”

Both of them? How unusual, for them to be assigned in such a grouping. Yelena didn’t often work frontline like this, not unless...

“Hold up a moment,” he said, “are we going to blow one of these Seppie strongholds? Where are we headed, Kerasol?” Silence. “Oh stars.”

Kerasol, according to all the intel Doc sent him when he could, was a bastion of Seppie leaders, a place far enough behind the frontlines that any infiltration to it had to be utmost secrecy. The tramp of the approaching Coruscant Guard signalled their cue to get shifted, take to the skies and hide in the dark. Artyc darts in, pressing her lips to Echo’s cheek. His blush is visible even in under the glow of the bar’s lights. Warning sighs contentedly. “Young love is so wonderful.”

Vulpe really, really wants to leave her here, but she’s actually unironically one of his best friends, and he would feel kinda shitty about just leaving her down here (not that she’d stay long). “Just, save it and come on,” he says on a sigh, and starts leaping up ledges after Yelena and Alys. “Artyc, leave your boyfriend there, we’ll see him sooner than later.”

“Goodbye,” calls the ARC Trooper, leaning into the darkness as though he can watch them scale the balconies up-up-up towards the stars. 

Somewhere above him he hears Warning giggle. “So, Kerasol,” she says, and he sighs. Of course she’s coming with them. Of course.


	6. Under Orders

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theme song: Copacabana by Barry Manilow (please don't hurt me)

“Kill her,” orders the Chancellor, and everyone in the room freezes. Yelena and Artyc, the Domino Twins, Rex, himself. “Do it! She is a danger to us all,” insists the elderly man, pushing and pushing. Rex is torn, snatching glances at Fives’ anguish, Artyc’s breathless horror, the glowing danger in Vulpe’s eyes, and all the while the Chancellor leers over them as if the slugthrower Alys holds to his head at point-blank range is mere ashes in the wind. “Do it. For the Republic – are you a traitor too, Captain?”

There is something wrong with the blaster Rex holds. It’s a standard base design, sure, but he can’t quite decipher the add-ons, unless. Unless. _Slugger,_ he signs to his sisters urgently, hands flicking rapidly, _slugger, danger!  
_

“Shoot her, Captain,” whispers the Chancellor again. A beat. Another. _Shoot her, shoot, shoot.  
_

Who moves first? Who can say? Only one bullet is cast, in the end, of that he is sure. 

The noise that tears out of Alys’ throat in the wake of the slugthrower cannot be described, deep and harrowing and agonised like the grunting of a dying rancor. Her hands quiver. Her hands never quiver. The slugger falls to the ground. 

“No,” she says, voice somehow still strong even as she staggers. “No.”

Vulpe darts forwards, his hands wrapped around Rex’ neck, hears her hit the ground in a dull thump. “I’ll kill you for that,” he snarls viciously, eyes alight in burning grief. All he can taste in the air is her blood. Her blood. Alys’ blood. His sister. “I should have killed you back when I had the chance. She did nothing.”

“She was a danger!” The blond Clone’s voice is somehow not shaken, somehow still self-righteous even in the wake of his unwarranted attack. 

In the corner of his eye, he watches as Fives lunges free of his twin. The ARC gathers her head into his lap, a litany of small sobs and whimpers pouring out in an attempt at comfort and he presses his hands to the gaping wound. Echo lingers, hand hovering helpless over Artyc’s back, listening to his vod’ika watch the life leave Alys’ eyes. 

“Good soldiers follow orders,” Rex croaks, desperate to be believed. Vulpe sobs out his next breath, Alys’ blood burning through his senses. 

“Not like this, Rex.”

Rex slumps back. “I didn’t – I didn’t mean to,” he whispers. He stares up as if he will find salvation, forgiveness, some form of redemption in Vulpe’s glowing-amber eyes. 

“You did.” Didn’t mean to shoot her, didn’t mean to cause fatal harm regardless, it doesn’t matter, because the deed is done. Rex did. 

He moves off Rex, gently pushing Fives away from his sister so he can cradle her into his lap as if she’s no more than a small child. When she cries out, Fives keens, curled over himself as if the bullet landed in his own stomach. From what little Vulpe understands of the relationship between the Domino Twins and the twin sisters, it may as well have. Beside him, Artyc looks even worse. Blood stains his hand as soon as he presses into his injured sister’s stomach. “Hey, kih’vod’ika.”

She manages a bloodied half-smile up at him, gaze distanced. “Hi.”

“You’re gonna be okay, yeah?” he promises, runs his other hand into her short hair. 

Her pale skin is washed blue-grey by pain. “Yeah?”

He nods. “Yeah.” 

Alys rolls her head. “Fives?”

The ARC pushes himself closer, reaching out to take her hand. “I’m here, cyar’ika.”

“I love you,” she breathes, staring at Fives as if he’s her grasp at safety, as if by love alone she can stay alive. “I love you.”

Silence.

No.

No.

“Alys?”

Nothing. 

A broken growl breaks loose of the knot of agony in his lungs. 

_No.  
_

Vulpe stands, blaster in his hand pointed straight at the Chancellor. Behind him, Fives is choking on grief, clawing at the carpet; Rex is still kneeling, watching, broken down and bewildered.

The old man raises his brows. “Do it, clone. I dare you.”

He should. He should. But the Chancellor has access to the Vode. If he doesn’t make an immediate kill shot then more Vode will die. 

Squeeze the trigger. 

Why can’t he squeeze the trigger. 

One shot is all it takes from this blaster, one shot and a guaranteed death. Nobody survives a shot from this. 

_Not me, not me, the Jedi, the Jedi are your targets, kill the Jedi, not me.  
_

Vulpe shakes his head as if the whispers will fall out of him by the motion. “No. You are my enemy. You killed my sister.”

“The Captain killed your sister,” corrects the Chancellor.   
“And I will deal with him,” he snarls, “but you gave the order.”

“Shoot me, then.”

He will. He wants to, by the stars he wants to, yet he cannot. 

Squeeze the trigger. 

But none of them can. 

“Leave, all of you,” orders the Chancellor. 

Yes. Leave. Of course, they should leave. He turns away, notes that his sisters are already removing their traces, tugging a rug over the bloodstains. Alys is easy to carry. When did he pick her up? It doesn’t matter. 

Leave, leave, chants his brain, leave and never return, never speak of this to anyone, leave, leave. 

They leave. The corridors of the Senate building are gaudy and red like her blood, but he can’t stop to think about that yet, because all he has is the driving need to _leaveleaveleave_ and get far away. Subconsciously, Vulpe is well aware that he’s going to lose all control when the compulsion wears off. Echo and Fives have their helmets on, blue-painted, and his sisters are once more hidden behind their masks. He is not wearing his bur'cye – he is not in his armour – where is it? Where is his protection?

What has happened?

“Alys,” he says, as if she’s sleeping, but she doesn’t stir. She isn’t breathing. “Alys.”

Behind him, one of the troopers stumbles, but his brother yanks him upright. Where is their transport – there, that building. All they need to do is climb up there. 

“Artyc.”

“Contact sent, eta five,” she answers, clipped and curt. Deep breath in, Vulpe tells himself, and starts up the tower, his sisters on point. The staircase winds, rickety and dangerously exposed, but he won’t be stopped. Not with the two boys from Domino backing him, not with the murder burning low in his eyes. If they reach the top of this tower of the Senate building, then the transport can hover alongside, and they can go. Leave, leave, leave. 

His cover is blown. Who will pay for it? Alys is already gone. Drena maybe. Brena. Whoever the Madam decides he will grieve hardest. Sephie. Merida. 

“Blackout – I mean, Vulpe,” starts Echo, “I, um, can we...”

He nods, because he won’t leave them behind, can’t, they’ve seen too much, and he won’t kill them. “Get in.”  
Carr is waiting, ad all the colour leaves her face when she sees the limp form of their sister cradled in his arms. “Alys, oh, gods.”

_Leaveleaveleaveleave.  
_

“Let’s go. Go. Get us off this planet. Go, go, go,” he begs, desperate panic clawing up his chest, needing to get away from the Chancellor and his silky words, his command and control. Carr gets the door shut, ushers Artyc and Echo into seats and straps them in. Whilst she doesn’t often fly, Yelena is completely capable of piloting, and she steps up to the task whilst he lays Alys – darling, wonderful, fearless Alys – on the floor, where Fives lies beside her, chin on his forearms, forlornly gazing down at her face. She looks like she’s only sleeping.

Vulpe feels the compulsion wearing down, freeing his brain. His sisters are silent, Artyc’s sobs hidden in Echo’s neck. “Ni ceta, vod’ika,” he breathes out, eyes shutting. In his chest his heart breaks into smithereens.


End file.
